Victory Music 1994 / Spirit Of Unicorn Music 2024
To hear the calling of a miracle and to hold the right to rearrange the stalling of the spirit: heroes of yesterday make the walls of time come tumbling down.
Back in 1994, progressive rock fans who ventured out to see their favorite ranks-shifting ensemble were in for a stressful surprise. Yes, the audiences might have been aware that YES reverted to the band’s pre-ABWH format, yet listening to the veterans deliver only four of their ’70s favorites alongside all bar one song of “Talk” – the album which, despite the musicians appearing on the Letterman show in the middle of American tour, not a lot of people grasped – felt underwhelming, to say the least. But then, the players had nothing to prove anymore after reinventing the group’s erstwhile creativity in the previous decade, and the time came to rein in virtuosity in favor of performance and stay relevant in the ’90s: the intent and promise the quintet succeeded in bringing to life – and, thus, in propelling past glories to future triumphs. It didn’t seem possible in the light of the record’s commercial drive getting curtailed by the label going bankrupt; still, if not for this deceptively obsolete and oft-overlooked opus, the esteemed collective wouldn’t be here today.
The fact that “Talk” was one of the first musical projects laid down in a strictly digital way doesn’t matter now, although the result of what required just 32 GB is impressive, unlike the fact that Jon Anderson, who had rejoined the line-up quite late in the process of sculpting “90125” in 1983 and got somewhat sidelined during the making of “Big Generator” four years later, finally managed to restore the band’s classic sensibilities without disrupting Trevor Rabin’s robust structures. There may be more riffs on the 1994 release than on both preceding platters from the same array of artists, but there are also much more luxuriant vocal harmonies so typical for the old collective; and the experience of 1991’s “Union” which had spliced YES and ABWH found the specks of Steve Howe and Rick Wakeman‘s fairy dust rub off on, respectively, Rabin and Tony Kaye. It’s pretty apparent on the album’s immensely alluring, anthemic opener “The Calling”; however, the long-overdue return to epic scope on the tripartite “Endless Dream” – where aficionados can notice slight nods to “Heart Of The Sunrise” – belongs almost entirely to this configuration of the group.
Remarkably, for all their complexity, the record’s inaugural and closing pieces worked perfectly in live environment, as illustrated by two out of four discs comprising the 30th anniversary reissue of “Talk” – a box set in which its remastered variant is accompanied by a smattering of rare material, and a document of the quintet’s outing in Canandaigua, NY on June 19th, 1994, a show preserved, unfortunately, not in the original running order. Yet while hearing “Roundabout” in the middle of the concert, rather than as encore, will irritate connoisseurs, they must admire the group’s resolve to welcome the crowds with fresh cuts, as the aforementioned “The Calling” and the effusively spiritual, diaphanously polyphonic “I Am Waiting” – second song on the album as well as onstage – followed the instrumental jam on the “Perpetual Change” theme, omitted here, prior to letting familiar melodies fill the ether, including the stunning “Hearts” that hadn’t been aired since 1985. And if the equally expansive “Real Love” initially gets off on slider rolled across the tight lock of Chris Squire‘s booming bass and Alan White’s thundering drums as opposed to enticing tune, there’s drama in this number’s haunting chorus and heaviness; but similar features of the folk-informed “State Of Play” – the sole track off “Talk” to never be taken to a venue – pack a lesser punch, possibly because the subsequent compositions could demonstrate a stronger contrast.
So when “Walls” switches sound dynamics to quieter tones and sparser, acoustically tinctured interplay, the record’s flow and context become arresting enough to render the gentle madrigal of “Where Will You Be” genuinely majestic, even when it turns into a waltz interpolating a “Speak Softly Love” sort of motif before unfolding a series of countrified passages. These lead to “Silent Spring” – the introductory onslaught of the album’s denouement, an aural attack which will allow the suite’s central section, the platter’s titular ballad, to bloom on a piano vine and proceed to the solemn cosmic hymn of “Endless Dream” per se that ties many of the earlier lyric messages together.
The climax of “Talk” feels as fantastic in its sketch form, too, standing out among the rarities of minor interest, such as different mixes of “The Calling” or backing tracks of a couple of songs; yet there’s also Rabin’s untitled raga-tinged wigout containing a germ of “Where Will You Be” to focus on. A pity Roger Hodgson-voiced demo of “Walls” – which cropped up on Trevor’s “90124” in 2003 – isn’t included in this otherwise great reissue. A reissue doing justice to the criminally underrated opus.
****3/4